A report titled “India on the Go- Mobile Internet Vision Report 2017” by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and KPMG has brought to light the magnitude of change in usage of Internet through mobile. The Indian mobile story is gaining importance in elephantine proportions. The report says that India is projected to have 236 million and 314 million mobile internet users by 2016 and 2017 respectively.

The report forecasts that with the availability of cheap yet better performing smartphones, reasonable data packs and ease in connectivity, it shouldn’t be surprising if 2G dies a sudden death. 3G and 4G are gaining prominence not only in urban areas but also the rural areas. The telecom companies are manufacturing 3G sim cards in full swing currently as the number of 3G subscribers are estimated to reach a gasping 284 million by 2017.

At the eve of launching the report, Ashvin Vellody, Partner, KPMG said, “With more than 300 million internet users, India has the second largest internet user base in the world. But the internet penetration at 19 per cent (approx) is poor and limits the potential. The next wave of growth in penetration of internet will be driven by adoption of mobile internet. The mobile internet growth story would be written by the large population in the hinterland and meaningful and compelling content/ use cases would enable adoption of mobile internet.” And we couldn’t agree more. As of now there are 350 million internet subscribers and the report says that will stand at 500 million internet user base in 2017.

The dominance of the mobile internet market calls for the inevitable increase in jobs in the same field of apps. Backed by the above data, the mobile apps are being downloaded more than before and faster than ever. Looking into the concept, IAMAI and ICRIER published a report titled “An Inquiry Into The Impact Of India’s App Economy” which forecasts that the employment creation in the industry can range somewhere between 151,230 to 159,010 jobs by 2016. Currently the app industry accounts to 75,000 jobs.

While in the mobile app industry, it is expected to create direct 76,230 jobs to 84,010 jobs by 2016 while in the indirect sense, the app economy is looking at creating 600,000 jobs. R Chandrashekar, President of NASSCOM observing the trend, said, “Digitization of data at source is critical and therefore mobile is the way forward to speed up the implementation of projects. Mobile apps offer an interesting way of digitization and save both time and money but the challenge is to create a conducive ecosystem. Harmonious commercial synergies between app developers and telecom operators have to be created. App development coupled with infrastructure development will lead to the growth of the app economy.”

The Indian internet user base is of utmost importance to the Google Play Store which allows 100 million downloads in a month. The apps that get downloaded are mostly built by startups and most of the apps have an Indian working on it either at home or abroad which is a huge proud moment for all Indians.

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